smartwatch honor band 6

Honor announced its latest smart band, the Honor Ring vi, before this year, and when information technology was introduced, I was a bit intrigued. Drawing the line between a smart ring and a smartwatch can already exist a challenge, but the Laurels Band 6 looks incredibly similar to the Honor Watch ES nosotros reviewed last year, making that distinction all the more complicated.

The Accolade Ring vi is also a pretty big divergence from its predecessor, the Honor Band 5, in terms of the design, with a bigger display and an upgraded UI. The feature set, however, hasn't changed a whole lot, but it's already a adequately complete fitness tracking experience.

Specs

Body	43x25.4x11.45mm, 29g
Strap	Silicone strap, swappable
Display	1.47-inch AMOLED, 364x194, 282ppi
Sensors	Accelerometer Optical eye rate sensor (with sleep monitoring and stress monitoring) SpO2 sensor
Bombardment life	Up to 14 days with typical usage, 10 days with heavy usage
H2o resistance	5ATM
OS	LiteOS
Cost	€49.99

Like the Honor Watch ES, specs similar the RAM, processor, or internal storage aren't made bachelor to the public, but information technology'southward not a blazon of device that requires very powerful hardware, particularly with LiteOS beingness as lite equally it is.

Blueprint and brandish

Like I said at the top, the Honor Band half dozen feels incredibly like to the Award Sentinel ES, but smaller. Inorthward was sent the is Meteorite Black colorway, which it's an all-black design with a metal frame, a matte-finish plastic back that houses the sensors, and a black rubber strap. If you don't similar the all-black color, though, you tin get it in Sandstone Grey or Coral Pink. You can also modify the straps later if you get tired of the colour you lot got.

Considering it's smaller, it'southward much easier to forget you're wearing information technology, and I remember that's a practiced matter since it means information technology's pretty comfortable to wear all day. Helping with that is the fact that the whole matter weighs just 29 grams, including the strap, and so it's a very subtle presence on your wrist. Nevertheless, if you're comparison it to the Honor Band 5, it'due south significantly wider, then it may make a difference for yous if you're considering an upgrade.

The strap also feels very nice and the material used is fairly flexible, so it feels quite nice overall. One thing I don't like is that the gratuitous loop where the strap is meant to become has a very evident protrusion that's meant to hold the strap in place using the adjustment holes. That may sound like a good idea, but it makes information technology pretty hard to remove the smart ring intentionally, besides, and I accept to squeeze the loop to finish the strap from getting caught on it.

On the right side of the Honor Band 6, you'll discover the home button, which replaces the button on the front of its predecessor.

Meanwhile, the left side but has an Honor logo. In that location's no microphone or speaker here, and so you won't be able to take calls on this watch.

The rear of the lookout man has all the sensors needed for fettle tracking, too as two pin connectors for charging.

Finally, the front features a 1.47-inch AMOLED brandish, arguably the biggest departure between the Honor Band vi and its predecessor, which only has a 0.97-inch panel. This is what makes the Honor Ring half-dozen feel a lot more than like the Honor Lookout man ES, and to become forth with that, the interface has been tweaked to look fifty-fifty more like Accolade'due south watches than its smart bands. I haven't personally used an Laurels Band 5, simply looking at videos online, yous tin can tell how much smaller the screen was, and the UI was far less colorful and animated beyond the lookout faces.

One thing you lose hither compared to the Honor Watch ES is support for an always-on display, which I personally don't heed at all, simply information technology can make or break a product for many people. In that location's also no ambient light sensor, so the display brightness won't suit automatically.

Fitness and health tracking

For general health tracking, the Honor Band half dozen offers a pretty complete set of monitoring features that help y'all empathize how you're doing. It has 24/vii heart rate monitoring, stress monitoring, and sleep monitoring, and SpO2 measurements, only like you can become on Laurels's more expensive products. You also get things like activity reminders when you've been sitting for also long, and a female cycle tracker, which I can't personally test.

Huawei and Laurels'due south health tracking is pretty bully overall. For example, your sleep information offers some pretty detailed insights into your habits, so it'southward easier to pinpoint where you demand to improve.

Where you practise miss out compared to more expensive products like the Honor Watch ES is in the conditioning features. Simply like the Honor Band 5, you tin only track ten types of workouts with the Award Band 6 - indoor and outdoor running, walking, and cycling; rowing motorcar, elliptical, swimming, and gratuitous training (simply called Other). 6 types of workouts tin too be detected automatically, and then if you forget to log a workout, the sentry volition do it for you. That's a pregnant pace downward from the 95 workout modes that the Accolade Watch ES supports.

You as well don't go the guided workouts that you could get with that watch, so information technology'south not as consummate of a fettle tool. Personally, well-nigh of my workouts are bike rides, and then this is fine enough for me. As with anything, it'southward all virtually what you lot accept the need for, and while the Laurels Lookout ES was more than serious about practise, the Honor Band vi is much cheaper and focuses on the essentials.

Once you start working out, the Honor Band six does a good job of tracking your action, and yous as well go enough of insights into things like your eye rate, speed, footstep, altitude changes, calories burned, so on. If you're into swimming, it can also measure out your performance there, with information such equally your SWOLF score.

One thing that withal bothers me about this is that the sentry doesn't show me the option to track my outdoor cycling, I need to start it from the Huawei Health app on my telephone. This is because the watch tin can't rail your location itself, so in order for outdoor workouts to function as intended, you need to start them from your telephone. However, outdoor running and walking are available on the picket itself, they simply don't track your location and gauge your traveled distance. It may be harder to estimate distance while cycling, just the sentry should just be able to pull my location from my phone.

One thing I learned recently is that Huawei Health can sync my information to Google Fit, which definitely helps in making this spotter more than useful to me. Notwithstanding, I've noticed that information technology doesn't sync complimentary training workouts, and so that's a bummer.

Software and battery life

Software is yet another element that helps the Honor Ring 6 feel a lot more like the Laurels Watch ES than the Honour Band 5. The UI for the software is now most identical to that of Huawei's more expensive watches, which means a lot of the interface is more blithe, there are more icons to aid visualize options on the screen, and it overall feels much more lively and detailed than the Honour Band 5 did.

As you'd await, the scout face is customizable with a few options out of the box, and a lot more are bachelor through the Huawei Health app on your phone. There are dozens of options with very dissimilar styles, and you can also but use a picture from your gallery, though the interface on the app doesn't arrive easy.

Y'all can swipe sideways from the watch face to get access to things like music playback controls, your activity records, heart rate, stress levels, and atmospheric condition, and pressing the side push button opens the card, which offers the following features:

• Conditioning
• Workout records
• Heart charge per unit
• SpO2
• Activity records
• Sleep
• Stress
• Breathing exercises
• Music
• Weather
• Notifications
• Stopwatch
• Timer
• Alarm
• Flashlight
• Remote shutter (requires an Honor phone)
• Discover telephone
• Settings

I've said it before and I stand by it - I still prefer a smartwatch that puts the accent on its smarts, such every bit those based on Google's Wear Bone. Huawei and Award'south LiteOS is perfectly serviceable for fitness tracking, and you get basic things like notifications for letters and calls, music controls, and weather condition information, only it'south non a super smart device. You tin't install apps or practice things like replying to notifications. The thing is, this operating system being so light is what lets information technology run on inexpensive devices like this, and you're not going to discover a Wear Os smartwatch anywhere close to this price.

Another matter that's enabled by this simple software is the incredible bombardment life. I got this watch with 85% battery out of the box and information technology took well-nigh a week before I had to charge it to feel confident it wouldn't die during the day - when it was at about 9%. I then charged it to 100% and it'due south currently sitting at 48% from that same accuse, roughly vii days afterward. I accept been working out less often this week, which may have helped the bombardment go down a fleck slower, merely either way, you rarely take to worry well-nigh charging this smart ring.

Conclusion

The Honor Band 6 is a big evolution of Honor'due south smart bands, and for that, it's commendable. It keeps a small and subdued pattern that's characteristic of a smart band, and it'southward however very comfy to wearable, to the point where you can often forget it'due south there. It's wider than a typical smart ring, but that makes way for a much bigger display, which in turn has a much more lively interface that makes it much more appealing to use. Equally I've mentioned, it feels more like a smaller Laurels Picket ES than a new Honor Band.

Information technology also includes the essentials for health and fitness tracking, with the nigh mutual workout types being supported, forth with some bones smart features similar music controls, notifications, and weather condition info. It supports the same ten conditioning modes as its predecessor did, so in terms of features, information technology hasn't changed all that much.

Information technology does come up with a noticeable price increase, though, as the Honor Band 5 officially retailed for €34.90 on Honor's Spanish website, while the Accolade Band 6'due south official cost is €49.99. However, you lot can as well look at this equally a watered-down Honour Watch ES, and from that perspective, y'all're sacrificing some of the workout options, an always-on display, and swappable watch bands in exchange for a smaller device that costs one-half as much.

The Honor Band 6 isn't withal bachelor from Honor straight, but y'all tin can find information technology on AliExpress, where information technology's going for as low as €37.99 right at present, depending on where you are. If you're more of a fan of the typical smart band form factor, y'all may want to consider something similar the Xiaomi Mi Band 6, which also offers more than workout tracking modes.

Pros

- Big display - Improved interface - First-class battery life - Proficient mix of health and fitness tracking features

Cons

- More expensive than its predecessor

Source: https://www.neowin.net/reviews/honor-band-6-review-a-smartwatch-disguised-as-a-smart-band/

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